Prime Day 2019: US Analysis

How other retailers and brands performed during Amazon’s marquee event

As Hitwise reported last week, Amazon’s 2019 Prime Day broke records (again). In the US, Prime Day generated 20.2 million transactions across the 48-hour period, which is 2 million more than Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined. Another incredible feat was surpassing the 10% conversion rate mark. Just over one in every ten products that Americans viewed on Prime Day resulted in a purchase.

Which brands and categories had the most promising Prime Day? And how has ”Christmas in July” impacted other retailers? Read on to find out!

Electronic Brands Ring It In

It’s no surprise that Prime Day would be Amazon’s time to shine as a brand. Amazon sold over 3 million of their devices in the US this year and 32% of those purchases came from the Fire TV Stick, which was the top-selling product for the second year in a row.

Nine of the top ten brands are electronics, and based on their top-selling products, Americans made practical purchase decisions. While Samsung and Apple did well with smartphone and tablet sales, simpler items like batteries, memory cards, and portable chargers sold well for AmazonBasics, SanDisk, and Anker, respectively.

The Instant Pot remained a crowd-pleaser but sold fewer units than last year, indicating strong market penetration. Apple’s high growth was a result of the company beginning to directly sell their products on Amazon. Sony struck big with video game and headphone sales, while Amazon-owned Ring can attribute the growth to their $30 off deal.

Oral Care Shines While Activity Trackers Slow Down

Although electronic products were among Prime Day’s best sellers, the category overall remained strong but stagnant. Health & Household generated the most growth year-on-year, driven by batteries, DNA test kits, and vitamin purchases.

Prime Day Isn’t Just For Amazon

While over 21 million people made purchases on Amazon during the week of Prime Day, another 55.6 million visited the site but didn’t make a purchase. Of these Amazon browsers, most made purchases at Walmart, Target, and Kohl’s. More compelling offers from apparel retailers like Old Navy could have impacted the decline in clothing purchases on Amazon year-over-year.

Number of Customers That Were Amazon BrowsersWeek Ending 07/20/19

Source: Hitwise, US. Week ending 7/20/19 vs week ending 7/21/18. Amazon browsers are consumers that visited amazon.com and did not make a purchase. Overlap of where else Amazon browsers made purchases during the week of Prime Day and how that grew YoY.

Even though these retailers conquested sales from Amazon’s would-be buyers, just how much did Prime Day impact performance?

Costco had the most impressive knock-on effect from Prime Day this year with +15% week-on-week growth, which is more than double Amazon’s growth of +6.2%. Kohl’s and Old Navy both saw +9% increases in purchases during the week of Prime Day, likely due to their incredible offers. Kohl’s allows customers to stack up to four coupon codes on top of each other, while Old Navy offered 50% everything site-wide. Target and Best Buy also saw greater growth than Amazon week-over-week.

Not all retailers received a positive impact from Prime Day. Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Wayfair all experienced a dip in transactions. None of these competitors had competing offers during Prime Day, which likely led to their purchase declines.

Prime Day has become an industry game-changer. Not only does the yearly sales event continue to improve for Amazon, but other retailers that hop on the bandwagon with competing promotions have achieved similar results.

Perhaps Prime Day will become a bigger season for retail than the holiday weeks. Interested in tracking retail performance ahead of the holidays?

Stay tuned for our upcoming reports on the growing threat of Amazon, holiday planning, and more!

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